What the Family Needed

Aug 23, 2025 9:56 PM

Author:Steven Amsterdam

'Okay, tell me which do you want: to be able to fly or to be invisible?'

This question leads to thirty years of discoveries, extraordinary strengths and closely guarded secrets.

'To tell you the narrative concens a family whose members have superpowers is only to graze the surface of a moving and beautifully realised meditation on what it is to be an ordinary human being'

Australian

'A wonderful novel: imaginative, intelligent, empathetic... Like a cross between The Corrections and The Slap'

Sydney Morning Herald

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2012 ENCORE AWARD

Reviews

A gem of a book…hugely entertaining and also quite moving

—— Thomas Quinn , Big Issue

Enjoyable

—— Ben East , Observer

Wry, deeply moving and literally magical

—— Chloe Hooper

Amsterdam is consistently playful, witty and light of touch

—— Times Literary Supplement

A wonderful novel: imaginative, intelligent, empathetic...like a cross between The Corrections and The Slap

—— Sydney Morning Herald

Brilliant, unexpected, wide-ranging and deeply moving, the story of one family's extraordinary - and sometimes otherworldly - negotiation of the very real hazards of life

—— Maile Meloy, author of 'Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It'

Every now and then, a novel arrives that conveys not only wisdom and understanding but also offers a dose of magic...a remarkable story, full of imagination and fun

—— Courier Mail

A lovely book, one that manages to surprise, and that seduces you into believing absolutely in this magical world

—— Canberra Times

In this taught, tense story, written with that unsparing economy which is such a feature of Hill's recent fiction, everyone longs to escape... Ted is thoughtful, compassionate, loving and misguidedly chivalrous... The sparseness of Hill's style provides the perfect medium for exploring his predicament

—— East Anglian Daily Times

Hill's taut prose exudes a constant darkness... you are left unsettled and haunted by the seeming inevitability of their troubled lives

—— Stylist

Taut, tense story, written with that unsparing economy which is such a feature of Hill's recent fiction

—— Matthew Dennison , The Times

The versatile Hill tells a perfectly judged story of people living hard, narrow lives

—— Observer

So well-written, so deeply imagined, that the reader will find delight even in the encircling gloom. Love may not conquer all, but Art can

—— Scotsman

[Hill] does what all good writers must set out to do: she made me read until I had the answer

—— M J Hyland , Guardian

Hill’s sparse style provides the perfect medium for exploring this family’s predicament

—— Matthew Dennison , The TImes

Hill does a wonderful job of evoking life in this enclosed community

—— Emma Hagestadt , Independent

A masterpiece of economy and control

—— Good Book Guide

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